He kept on hammering into my head a lot of different staff and the staff was so different that I only scratched my head and wondered.

I learnt the von Ruts’ genealogy, started from Leo von Rut, the first of them, up to Joachim von Rut, my so-called father.

I learned how to do dog hunting, how to chase a deer, how to bait the bear and to grow decoy ducks.

I was wearing clothes of the dead baron to let them look naturally on me as if I grew up wearing it. On top of that, they even tailored several more suits and we had to spend three extra days in the glorious town of Trindit.

I was given lessons on genealogical trees of all the ruling dynasties of Ragellon (frankly, I was not zealous at that subject as it was impossible to memorize all these crown-bearing persons, legion was their name).

I had to learn by heart the names of the most prominent philosophers of the past and the titles of their works. Agrippa called it a waste of time but Master Gaius forced me to do it anyway.

Whenever we spent a night in a town, we were staying in the best inn and the wizard required supper to be served in the count or even the king's way. Not because he was so snobbish but because I had to learn how to behave in a noble society. Have you ever had your meal with thick books under your arms? No? You know nothing about the real life. The food was delicious though, I have never had such eatables even when I was living in a noble house. However, at first, half of it flew off my mouth.

But that was not the case though. When we had to spend a night in the forest (it happened so several times) a far more tough trial was waiting for me. Agrippa became my tutor and he taught me to handle noble arms, I mean a heavy sword and a daga. The gentry used them during the fight as a rule.

By the way, I had my own sword and daga, Agrippa bought them for me in the first large town we visited and its name was Trindit. He had thoroughly examined the goods in several shops of the armourer, exercised the swords, forced me to do it. meticulously asked how well I could handle them with my hand, scratched the blade with the nail of his finger and asked a lot of questions to the sellers which I could not understand.

As a result of that I became the owner of a daga and a sword which blade was decorated with engraved fine letters making words. As Agrippa explained to me later they were the name of its maker. So the next morning I had a sore ass because of the saddle, my arms were aching as I had to do some exercises with extremely heavy blade and I was feeling pain in my chest because of numerous hits and cuts. It was a real wonder that he hadn’t killed me yet. I still couldn’t understand how he felt the right moment to stop the blade. I heard that lordlings used special patches on the tips of swords for taking that kind of training. I guess, Agrippa did not stuff his head with such things.

On the other hand, maybe it was what I needed to learn how to strike aside and to do it properly. Three weeks later he said to me, ‘well, it’s something. At least you hold the blade properly, not just like a redneck.’

It sounded like praising coming from him.

All that was not so simple to say the least but it did not mean that I kept on complaining and felt sorry about my involvement in that staff. No, not at all. I was studying and did it enthusiastically.

Although I remained indifferent to ruling royal dynasties and to the hunting technique, I was keen on Geography and History of Ragellon and listened to the wizard’s stories with my mouth opened as he was an excellent storyteller. I also was the same enthusiastic about learning the etiquette rules and mastering the craft of killing people of my kind as they were the skills I would need in my future life.

Besides, I unexpectedly began to like the art of fencing. I never tried to hide from the training and did my best every time I took a sword to my hand.

About a month later we left the central kingdoms of the continent and went along the duchies lands.

‘We should be more cautious in these lands,’ said Master Gaius and pointed out to the tilted pole with unpainted board hammered to it with rusty nails. Uneven and crooked letters which read Duchy Maherstain were curved on it with a dull knife. ‘Dukes are rather unpredictable and quarrelsome. Besides, they are famous for incestuous marriages which prevents them from giving birth to at least slightly reasonable rulers. Tell me, Erast what kind of person should order to establish such thing? Where is a cabin with a corporal, the demarcation line and the rest of the staff if its’s a border? And if it was made for no reason what was the sense behind it?’

‘Some five years I made a narrow escape from one of these dukes,’ added Agrippa. ‘His financial situation was so terrible that he started plundering inroads trying to catch anybody who was crossing his land.’

‘To impose a duty or to rob?’ wondered master Gaius.

‘Both,’ gloomily replied Agrippa, 'and he also required ransom from the relatives of the kidnapped. I was lucky to escape then. You should remember that trip, master.’

‘Oh, yes,’ said the wizard and looked at the pole again. ‘I think that the duchy rowdies is nothing more than disgraceful blotch on the body of the western lands. Why does Lindus the Eighth not do anything to stop that?’

Pretty soon I had to agree with him. The roads on the territory of the kingdom were excellent, road signs were placed everywhere they needed to be and when you checked in a roadside inn you were sure that there would be no bugs in your bed and you would actually wake up alive the next morning. Here everything was different.

There were several attempts to rob and to kill us on the roads of that duchy and it repeated in other duchies too. It happened on forest roads, in roadside inns and even in the street of nice and cozy town with a promising name of Fraistadt. In the latter case it happened right in the blaze of the day.

It sounded strange but Agrippa was happy about it, he called such disgraceful things ‘training’ and forced me to fight against the last left alive scoundrel. As a rule he was neither the strongest nor the weakest fighter among those who were able to hold a sword. However, he was not good enough to kill me at once. In each of these cases he selected more and more skillful rival for me and told me that I should not only wave with the blade but think how to kill the opponent. He kept on telling me that the fight would be won not by the man who better handles the weapon but by the one who would be able to get his opponent cornered.

And how indignant he was when I did not want to finish my first fight with killing the opponent. How long he was shouting at me with outrage!

It looked like it was easy for to kill a human. I admitted that I grew up in the street but I had never done it before. I could not call myself innocent either and I used to stub people but never killed them as it was not my purpose. However, I had to do it this time as when I placed the tip of my sword to the ground and said that I wouldn’t be able to do it, master Gaius took the tube out of his pocket and silently showed it to me.

I had to do nothing but to pierce the throat of the lying on the ground scoundrel with the tip of my sword. In the situation when I had to choose between my life and his I simply chose mine. Then I felt bad, very bad indeed and could not fall asleep during two night in a row. It seemed to me that this man would come to take a revenge as soon as I closed my eyes.

But it didn’t happen and besides a day later I added another killing to my sad account and the face of the first one became blurred.

This was how the time was passing. The summer was rainy and cold and we had to trump through the mud of duchies country roads which names I forgot even earlier than we left them, I was growing in my sword handling skills, received a bulk of information of what should a young baron originated from the middle of nowhere know but the problem was that I failed even to step on the path leading to the answer to the most pressing issue for me, I meant what role should I play for the wizard and what was he trained me for?

On the other hand, everything should be over sooner or later and it was exactly what happened to our trip. Three weeks after we left the kingdoms and when the summer was almost over I finally heard the name of the country which was familiar to me.

‘Here we are at the border of Himmelstain duchy,’ said Agrippa. ‘It means that we have arrived.’

We had hardly left the forest when we found ourselves on the edge of a gigantic heugh. There was nothing strange in that in this area. Here was the road and here it was nothing of it and was a heugh instead or it could be a river with no traces of a ferry or a road along the shallow of the river if it was the border of yet another duchy. His Excellence Local Duke did not care how people would leave his country. And actually it was a poor idea to do it as his country was the promised land and the neighboring state was not at all to say the least. Besides, the neighbor himself was a stinky pig and that was the most neutral definition.

‘It’s beautiful,’ I said, ‘but in my humble opinion, there is a great difference between the area we left and the one we are heading to.’

There was a small river under the heugh with a green meadow behind it and the forest somewhere far away in the horizon. Nothing new though.

‘It is simply because you still cannot be pleased with reaching the goal,’ explained Agrippa. ‘Believe me, Erast, it is one of the strongest feelings in our life. Only the sight of your dying swore enemy and probably the face of the man who will kill you can be more attractive.

It all comes to the same thing in your case,’ I muttered.

I should admit that my relationship with Agrippa had become rather friendly. Common fights and visiting a brothel made the men more devoted to each other.

Master Gaius sent me to a brothel himself telling me that, ‘baron Rut cannot be a virgin it’s impossible. Besides, I don’t need my plan to be collapsed because of a whore who will tell everyone about that fact.’

I don’t know how he scented out that I had not sex with a woman before (and it was true) but as a result of it I spent a night in a very funny place. I did not object it though and I liked the place very much.

Agrippa became my companion and in the morning we left the place almost as foster brothers having a kind of compassion to each other. As it turned out these places of interest make people friendly much faster than journeys.

On the other hand, I did not have illusions at that point. To do something with him is like having a wolfhound as a friend. He would let you wave him as long as his master tells him ‘go fetch!’ and that is the end of the story for you as his jaws have already penetrated your throat.

Nevertheless, I already let myself passing a comment about something and could even speak ironically in rare cases. By the way, I never guessed that I could do it as I always thought that I was kidding. However, Master Gaius said that I was good at it and explained the meaning of that word. He also advised me to know where to draw the line and I agreed with him at that point. Agrippa would hardly kill me for that although could easily smash my nose.

‘How far is it to Kreuzig from here?’ asked the wizard Agrippa. ‘When will we arrive?’

‘In two days at the latest,’ he replied. ‘If we stop for a night we shall be on site in the evening the day after tomorrow.’

‘We shall camp out here,’ immediately told Master Gaius. ‘We need to go down to the river though.’

‘It’s rather wet down there near the river,’ I said and shrugged my shoulders. ‘I don’t want to catch cold.’

‘Shame on you, Erast,’ reprimanded me the wizard. ‘You are a baron from Forest Region, you can sleep on the snow and eat raw meat. How can you be afraid of banal cold?

Guess, that lad was not afraid of it,’ I chuckled, ‘but not me…’

‘You are him,' said the wizard stretched his hand and grabbed my chin. ‘Don’t let me feel sorry for the time I have spent. You are him. You can ride a horse a week in a row, to fight with a sword and to bite a fox and you can do all these things since your childhood. You are baron von Rut.

‘I am baron von Rut,’ I confirmed in a tired voice.

I had repeated the phrase so many times that I began to believe it although I did’t want to live a strange life. Sooner or later it would be over and what would be left for me then? Or who would be I that time, to be exact? I would be neither baron von Rut nor Chris the Tout and that was the problem.

It was not wet near the river though and, on the contrary, the water splashing made me somehow soothe. It is their goal we are reaching and I feel worry a lot. There is nothing worse than uncertainty and it was the uncertainty only which I was dealing with.

‘Don’t worry so much,’ advised Master Gaius to me throwing a fish skeleton to the fire. Agrippa, using his excellent professional skills, caught some big fish. ‘I know that you were worried sick and have calculated a hundred of options to figure out the state of things. But I am sure that none of them was correct.

Master, could you tell me why is all that so mysterious?’ I dared to ask him. ‘Why didn’t you tell me where we were going to and what for? At least I would know what to expect then.

There are at least five reasons for that,’ said the wizard and showed his well-expanded palm to me. ‘I shall not tell you any of them, just believe they exist and that is all. Besides, it’s not so important now.

I don’t think so,' I disagreed with him. ‘If I don’t know where I am going to, I shall need to have a general idea about why it is so.

Not bad at all,’ cried Agrippa and applauded to me. ‘You have made a rhetorician out of him, master.

I think he did not understand what he has said,’ chuckled the wizard and pointed out to the opposite dark bank of the river. ‘Duchy Himmelstain is over there.

I got it already,’ I said and suddenly felt cold. I always felt cold in such situations.

In two days’ time we shall be in the town of Kreuzig,’ continued the wizard, ‘it is the capital town of the duchy. We shall stay for a night there, kiss goodbye in the morning and leave you for a while. What will happen to us is not important for you and you will go ahead and in…Agrippa?

In not less than twelve hours,’ replied the strong man.

‘In half a day you will arrive at a small village with poetically attractive name of Krannenherst,’ explained the wizard who became extremely serious and I had never seen such an expression on his face before. ‘You will see a big hill with a castle on it in a couple of leagues from the village. The castle will seem quiet huge for you although I don’t think so, it’s just a castle. Anyway, the castle is the point of your destination and you will go there.

And what is there in the castle?’ I asked.

‘Over there?’ asked Master Gaius and laughed but the laugh was rather strange for me and the voice sounded rather weak and broken. ‘There is the place where everything will be funny and cognitive for you and where you will spend at least a year, I hope so. Over there, dear Erast, there will be your new house and the name of it is Raven Mount. There you will be trying to master the most complicated subject in the world. There they will forge a wizard out of you.